Public resources should not be used to seek profits, says a signed article in Xiaoxiang Morning Post. An excerpt follows:

The State Council issued a document last Thursday about off-campus venues for children. It requires that cultural or science centers be operated as public welfare undertakings, and the benefit of children must be the priority. The document says that such venues should not conduct commercial activities to seek profits.

Venues like children's centers receive government investment to be run as public welfare undertakings. But some put their focus on commercial activities. It is timely for the central government to ban their commercial activities.

Under market economy conditions, some sectors forget their public welfare nature and throw themselves into the tide of profit-seeking. Venues for minors like children's centers are contracted or rented out to businesses. The space for teenagers' off-campus activities shrinks while some irrelevant or even unhealthy activities emerge in such venues.

The situation where public sector venues profit from public resources is not uncommon. For example, students' scores in the national college entrance examination are public resources, but some education departments co-operate with telecommunication companies to conduct charged information services.

From the angle of public administration, it is not cost-free for public departments, including public welfare undertakings, to provide public services. But taxpayers have paid for these services and citizens should not be charged for them. To use public resources for commercial activities amounts to privatization of public services and shows no regard to taxpayers' rights.

It seems no big deal for children's centers to conduct commercial activities, but what lies behind this is a serious problem. Related departments may have made some profit, but their public credibility is harmed. Such behavior should be banned.

At the same time, it is important to guarantee the funding for public welfare undertakings. That is the only way to put an end to commercial activities and to realize their nature as public welfare.

(China Daily April 11, 2006)